And we can.

I know I’m jumping in a week or two late here, but cut me some slack…I’ve been away in Europe where — no matter how good the TV is (and it’s really good in Britain) — SYTYCD Canada is not in the offing.

But now I’m back, and I am happy to say I only missed one audition episode (sorry, Toronto!) due to sloppy PVR planning. So I’ve seen (over and over again, actually) Vancouver & Halifax, Montréal & Calgary.

Favourite moments?

Sami Elkout, the Ninja:

Katie Lee (listen to the judges while she dances):

How cute is the Charlie Chaplin bit? I know!

How hot is Danny Arbour? Seriously! Moving his hips like that in those black pants…

A little bit Jonathan Rhys-Myersesque, perhaps. Too little, maybe, but H.O.T. HAWT!

And TOTALLY rocking ballroom, Christian Millette and Denitsa Ikonomova. Again, listen to the judges:

Ashley Irvin. Soooo cute. Soooo sweet. She brought Sean Cheesman to tears!

Emanuel Sandhu. He KNOWS he can dance. Whatever:

Okay. So he can dance. Really, really well. Really well. But I loved how the judges took him down a notch, attitude-wise. We’ll see what he’s able to do, especially when he has to share the stage with a partner.

Out there, but fab. Jeremy Tran-Huu:

Check out the look on Dan Karaty’s face at the end!

Watch Dario Milard. What a beautiful performance!

The most touching moment of the show: Jean-Marc’s reaction to Tiffany Anderson’s performance:

(skip ahead to 7:34…sorry, couldn’t find a clip of just her audition)

My favourite female dancer so far, Joey Bothwell:

But my fave, fave, FAVE? Justin Jackson. WATCH. THIS. Then watch it again. Seriously:

I am sooooo taking tap lessons this year!

For a definitive look at all the best auditions, check out sytycdfan‘s YouTube channel.

Really, the poor man’s foot is HORRIBLE. He has a terrible, disgusting, oozing infection that started in his baby toe and has migrated to the toe next door. I’ll give the man his dues…that thing is NASTY and he has been a trooper.

But still. Is there anything more trying than a man in pain? (Okay, other than a man with a cold, I mean.)

Today, FINALLY, after a week of walking on the foot of death, I forcibly confined him to our hotel room and I think we may actually have the thing under control, after performing self-inflicted surgery on a blister that was bigger than his baby toe (and I am not exaggerating!)

I am taking this family to the Tower of London on Wednesday come hell or high water, so that damn foot had better be better by then!

For more of our European adventures, check out our nifty travel blog!

If you want to know why (and where), go here. For some fun pics and stories from the trip so far, go here.

In other news, how much does the newest version of Firefox rock??? If you’re not already using this ubercool OS (that means free, folks) browser, you should be. It rules.

It’s 12:56 pm local time, and Girl2 just feel asleep. That’s not good. Jet lag has finally caught up to her. Contrary to what I thought last night, the energy stores of a five year-old child are not, after all, unlimited.

Sleep well, sweetheart.

Except for one MAJOR. FUCKING. PROBLEM.

The airline we booked for our Calgary-London flights just filed for bankruptcy protection in Canada and the UK. Yes, we booked with Zoom airlines. I’d flown with them before and quite enjoyed the service, meals and aircraft. It seemed like a good option – we had some experience with them and the price was certainly right.

Until today. When my Londoner sister phoned to say she’d heard a news story about Zoom filing for “administration”. A quick search on the internet revealed a story in the Times of London confirming that the airline had been grounded and had begun canceling flights. As time wore on, more and more stories cropped up online with the same story. All flights canceled. I can’t help feeling sorry for them. Fuel prices are DOUBLE what they were last year. And all those employees (600+) out of work. Just like that. All those passengers, out of luck or even stranded in airports far from home.

And me. Why me???? WHY MEEEEE????!!!?!?

It took nearly 6 hours on the phone to sort the whole thing out. Zoom was 100% unreachable all day. No surprise there. VISA was alternately reassuring & helpful and resistant & intransigent. Ultimately after an accumulated hold time of over 110 minutes, I got someone who was willing to help me and started the long process of getting the money back from Zoom.

But the prize of the day goes to British Airways, who reassured us there were indeed seats on flights leaving the same day as our original plans, offering to hold a reservation for four passengers for 48 hours, and then honouring a very, very good price that was no longer available once I had sorted out the VISA issue. Big props out to the folks at BA. You saved the day, our family vacation of a lifetime and Granny’s funeral. No small feat.

So, to quote the Bard (whose Globe Theatre I hope to tour this time):

All’s well that ends well.

This week, both Girl1 and Girl2 are in a city-run camp that includes swimming lessons, crafts, activities, yada yada, yada. They don’t particularly like it, and it is a bit disorganized. It’s one of those “you get what you pay for” kind of daycamps and it was only $120.

So they are with friends of theirs, and I’m carpooling with the other mom. I do the drop-off in the mornings, and the first two days, Girl2 clung, and cried and looked up at me with her sad, sad eyes when I left. This morning, though, she was fine.

Yahoo, right?!?

Of course not. Girl1 sensed the impending relief of maternal guilt and decided it was time for her to cry.

No rest for the wicked, right?

I’m going back on Monday for some highlights, I think.

The cover art reminded me a lot of something I read years ago in Naomi Wolf’s Misconceptions. To paraphrase, she said something like, “there’s nothing more attractive to a wife than the sight of her husband helping – unasked – with household chores. So if you want to get laid, pick up the vacuum.”

I read that out loud to my husband, and I’ve never forgotten it. Sometimes I think he has, though!

Anyway, back to the book. It so captured me that I stood at the shelf and read the whole thing. Here’s an example of what you can find inside

I love that one. “Ooh, Look. The NFL playoffs are today. I bet we’ll have no trouble finding parking at the crafts fair.”

The point is, there wasn’t a naked man in the whole damn book (shirtless at most). There wasn’t a single mention of sex. The whole things was just about men (husbands, really) being kind, generous and solicitous. About husbands putting their wives needs and interests ahead of their own.

And this is what turns us on?

How sad is that?

Men vacuuming, or offering to go to a crafts fair during NFL playoffs, doing laundry or taking the kids out to give mom a break should not be the subject of an edgy, caustic, book. Especially not in the HUMOUR section. It should be such a mundane, everyday occurrence that no publisher in her right mind would waste money on it.

It’s like a conversation I had with a friend yesterday, after Girl1 told me she wished she were a boy. I had responded to that with, “why would you want to be a boy? Being a girl is great!” And my friend later said, “well, in our part of the world it might be…not so much in other parts of the world.” And then we both had to admit that, even in our part of the world, sometimes being a girl is still pretty sucky.

And that just SUCKS.

So this is my right eye. And it’s kinda hard to see in this picture, but it has been running for FIVE DAYS now. Just running, running, running and PINK. Yes, I went to the doctor, and YES I have pink eye (Wow! Fun for the whole family: pink eye is not just for kids anymore!). And yes, I also have a prescription so let’s hope this goobie mess clears up and SOON.Then there are the unbelievable bruises that resulted from my fall down the stairs. But actually I’m quite fortunate that these wild and colourful contusions are the ONLY injury I suffered after taking the last 3 stairs down the METAL SPIRAL staircase at high speed on my ass:

I'll leave you all guessing what body part that is...OK, it's my arm ;o

But that’s not all! We have leaky rheumy eyes, a mosaic of moldy bruises, and then…and THEN:

Here’s where I swiftly change tack and remind you all never to take anything you read on the internet too seriously. Like when you have an IUD and your period is 8 days late, don’t go out and Google “pregnant with IUD”. If you do that, you’ll convince yourself that you are now one of many thousands of women who managed to get pregnant despite their IUD.

You’ll likely miss (or overlook) the legitimate information out there pointing to the fact that the IUD is actually comparable to OR BETTER THAN male sterilization as a means of birth control.

You will – guaranteed – think you are pregnant. And you’ll scour your body for signs of this pregnancy.

In this ill-advised search for pregnancy signs (you can’t just TEST to see if you’re pregnant because it’s after midnight and all the drugstores are closed. of course it’s after midnight! You just spent 7 hours on the internet reading every post in the “I got pregnant using an IUD” thread on the “unbelievable pregnancy stories” message boards.) So, in this ill-advised search, you will scrutinize your breasts for signs of pregnancy. You will find none. But – just to see if anything happens – you will give a squeeze (leaking colostrum being a good sign of pregnancy – very late pregnancy, but nonetheless).

And stuff will come out.

Brownish-green stuff.

Ohhhhhhhmigod. This can NOT be good.

Back to the internet. Googling: “brownish green nipple discharge” … and a big “phew”. It’s not associated with breast cancer. YES! I’m not going to die! (well, not today, and not from wrong-coloured nipple discharge, anyway).

Good thing I remembered to mention the weird nipple discharge to the Doctor when I went to see her about my eye, though, as I am now set up for a bilateral mammogram with ultrasound in order to determine if I have to have a galactogram. And no, I don’t think it has anything to do with Sci-Fi series. And no, I haven’t googled “galactogram”, because my doctor winced when she wrote up the radiology req and apologized when she gave it to me. I think I’ll leave that surprise for the day, don’t you think?

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I did go out the next morning and get a pregnancy test, which was most emphatically negative. 6 hours later I got my period (damn waste of eleven dollars!).

See, I told you it was totally TMI!

NUMBER ONE:
I am going to be a sad, bored and lonely person until the next incarnation of SYTYCD airs. I just feel – somehow – like I have really gotten to know these people and I will miss them. Pathetic, I know.

NUMBER TWO:
I am old. The Jonas Brothers? Who CARES? My kids would care, but they are well abed by the time this show airs (from 9:00 – 11:00 here). That was the first time I actually saw them perform and all I can say is…blah. Pretty typical of the ‘tween sensations (à la Hannah Montana) but not worthy of a show like SYTYCD.

But now to the show: I actually clapped out loud after two of the numbers! Yes, that’s right, crazy old lady alone in her living room clapping at the TV…right here! And both times I was moved to applause by Nigel – his choreography in 5 Guys Named Moe and his DANCING with the kids from the Debbie Allen Dance Academy to Boogie Wonderland:

More of my fave moments:

Mary DANCING!

Will, Will and WILL! He was sooooo the best dancer of them all, but just not “popular” enough. Oh well. The point of the show is not to find the BEST dancer, but the most popular, so, fair enough. Will was eliminated. Still: he was the best dancer and it was a treat to see him again. He shone in 5 Guys Named Moe (you can really see the difference when they’re all up there dancing together). But honestly, the pièce de résistance of this show (even, I will admit, better than Bleeding Love, although BL still remains my fave) is this pas-de-deux, with Will & Katee (btw the two best dancers of the whole season). Imagine:

And did you notice over the last few episodes that IKEA has been airing a commerical (with the theme “do you think you can decorate?”) starring none other than Robert Muraine?

do you think you can decorate?

Check out the entire video here.

Just goes to show you that this show really does launch people into professional gigs. As we saw in the recap of some of the dancers from previous seasons.

Seeing Bleeding Love again. I won’t re-post the video, you can see it in my post, Good-bye, Chelsie & Mark.

Seeing Courtney and Gev reunited. Mary’s right. These two were magic. I think I even liked them more than Joshua & Katee.

One word: BOLLYWOOD!

Courtney & Mark’s jazz number, the Garden:

And Cirque de Soleil was BRILLIANT, bien sûr. I liked the whole rabbit thing. Weird, but RIVETING.

As for the results, well I was thrilled that Katie got $50,000 – she totally deserved it! I really had my hopes on her to win, but after all the constant chatter about how Joshua was so brilliant but had never received ANY FORMAL TRAINING I knew that he would win the hearts of American viewers. Pit an untrained raw talent against a privileged, trained dancer and the votes will go with the raw talent, every time.

And before you go all postal on me for dising Joshua, it’s not that I don’t think he deserved to win. He is, without a doubt, a fabulous dancer. Brilliant. I totally think he deserved the win, but then I would have been happy with any of the top 10 taking this one.

Can you believe it? Here I am, 39 years old – supposedly in my prime – and I fall down the stairs? What is with that? I mean, little kids fall downstairs and get boo-boos. Old ladies fall downstairs and get artificial hips.

But noooooo…I fall downstairs and get bruised from head-to-toe and shaken up like a frikkin’ martini!

Check out the bruise on my left arm:

owie!

And that’s taken right after the fall…it hasn’t even had a chance to fully incubate yet. There is a matching bruise on my right arm, my right thumb joint is bruised and swollen (how? not sure), my left foot is swollen and then the prize-winning bruise is on my bum. But I won’t post a picture of that one (although it is magnificent) because I just don’t need pictures of my naked bum on the internet, if you know what I mean!

The staircase in question (kinda helps explain the fall AND the bruises…):

they were wet, too...I had just watered the flowers upstairs on the deck

Anyway, I took homeopathic arnica and put arnica cream on all the bruises. Hopefully that will help a bit with the swelling, and I took an Advil as well (picked up quite a banger of a headache in the aftermath).

Wish me well!